Egyptian prosecutors have referred former prime minister and presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq, his three daughters and 10 other accomplices to trial for embezzling public funds in the 'pilots housing' case.

Ahmed Shafiq and his daughters are being accused of seizing land that belonged to fish farms and illegally allocating it to the Pilots' Association for Land Development, which he headed.

Shafiq's lawyer, Hesham Mourad, said that Judge Osama El-Saidi, the prosecutor in charge of the case, had no "legal" right to refer the case to the criminal court, as his right to oversee the case was rejected in a previous decision by Egypt's court of appeal. Mourad claimed that the decision is "political."